78 dollars a barrel and another 15 or 20 more cents at the pump. For God's sake, just go ahead and make it $5 a gallon and get it over with.

Gasoline prices rise and fall so much you sort of get sick and tired of seeing it. Down it comes a little. Up it goes a lot.

The latest crisis to send oil up like the space shuttle Discovery is Israel's eruption over the kidnapping of two soldiers and the repeated rocket fire into the Israeli territory by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that makes its home in Lebanon. While dishing out collective punishment on Lebanon since Thursday, Israel has also threatened Syria and Iran. Iran in turn - fresh off its snub at the United Nations over its nuclear technology program - warned Israel that an attack on Syria would result in a &#8220fierce response.”

You have to hand it to Israel, though. They take nothing from no one. We'll fight you today, we'll fight you tomorrow, and we'll fight you next week. They have the attitude necessary for survival in a region where they're heavily outnumbered, backs against the sea, and clinging to a little sliver of land the size of east Alabama; the Biblical &#8220David vs. Goliath” in the truest sense.

Granted, having the United States lurking just over Israel's shoulder as its fiercest ally has helped.

But, personally, I'm sick of it. I've lived life on this green Earth for over three decades. The Middle East - namely, Israel versus name-an-Arab-state – has been a constant source for the world's &#8220Crisis of the Week” since the day I was born. Everyone's come up with plans for &#8220Peace in the Middle East,” and everyone has failed. How arrogant to think anyone can solve, in a few years, a problem that has been on going for centuries.

I'm sick of being a thrall for oil. I'm sick of having to pay a good portion of my paycheck for a noxious liquid that is not essential to my survival as a human being, such as food or water. I'm sick of hearing how fat the CEO cats of Big Oil are getting as they rake in our cash by the building loads. I'm sick of Wall Street panicking at the first sign of a hurricane or the first bomb dropping anywhere and sending oil prices through the stratosphere. I'm sick of gasoline companies reacting as if gas had suddenly become as scarce as a liberal in the Republican Party. I'm sick of reading police reports about drivers speeding away from the pumps without paying; damn it, I'm paying - you'd better be. I'm sick of everyone speculating about alternative energy sources - find one, already.

Okay. I'm not sick.

Mainly, I'm just mad.

Kevin Pearcey is Group Managing Editor of Greenville Newspapers, LLC. He can be reached by phone at 383-9302, ext. 136 or by email at: editor@greenville.advocate.com.